Probability
by AkumaStrife
Summary: Countless opportunities. Countless instances where a fluke was moments away. Countless disastrous meetings avoided. But they are like identical magnets: oh so attracted and at the same time violently repelled. And if something were to flip... /AU/


He is nine and pouts at the water before him. He loves Demyx to death, really he does, but these weekend trips to the blond's cabin were getting to be too much.

"Come on Axel! The water's not even that cold." Demyx coaxes, treading water like it was the most natural thing in the world (Axel firmly believed that for him it was).

"I _hate_ water!"

"I know," the blond giggles and snakes a hand forward to grab a pale ankle, yanking his best friend off the dock and into the lake.

The last thing Axel sees before slipping under the surface is a mane of hair as red as his own, somewhere on the opposite shore. When he comes back up, the splash of vivid color is gone, so he pushes it out of his mind, ignoring the nagging feeling that builds when he does so.

**-xXx-**

Two boys are playing; both nine years old, both excited to be at their fathers' cabins for the weekend again. They play in the water, skip stones, and all around ignore the rest of the world around them.

It is only when there is a slight commotion on the other side of the lake that the little boy with messy red hair looks up inquisitively. He catches a flash of red –what he guesses to be hair like his own- as it flies through the air, before barreling into the water.

His eyes are locked, frantically searching for the person to come back up. Not because he is worried for them, but because he _needs_ to see them.

"Reno! Rude!" a voice calls loudly, but Reno pays it no mind, still watching the other side of the lake.

"We better hurry up," Rude comments, ever the responsible one, pulling his best friend up the hill, "Our dads will be angry if we take too long."

Reno looks up at him with a strange expression, as if he's not quite sure about anything anymore, "Right…" and throws one last glance at the lake before seeming to snap out of it and follows the other little boy.

* * *

"Today is a new day! A new start!"

"How perceptive of you." A boy comments dryly, lounging on the bed that is not his own as he flips through a comic book.

"Mark my words Rude—"

But the other cuts him off, "Dude, Reno, it's only seventh grade. Chill out."

"Say what you will, but things will be different this year—"

"I doubt it."

"—and so today is the beginning of the rest of our lives—"

"Where do you come up with this corny shit?"

"—therefore we're going to do something totally different! So get in this bathroom right now!"

Rude sighs and rolls his eyes, but gets up and follows the redhead anyways. It is when he's presented with a razor that he frowns with confusion and even a little bit of apprehension.

"Uh…what…"

"You're going to shave all your hair off."

"The hell I am!" Rude exclaims, backing away. Reno shoves the tool in his resisting hands and picks up a pair of scissors, going to work on his own mane of hair.

"Come on, don't be a wimp. Don't you want a new look? A new way people look at you? Do you forever want to be known as 'that kid who doesn't talk much and hangs out with that hyper kid'? No other thirteen year old is bald by choice, that in itself just screams badass!"

Rude doesn't say anything, merely eyes the razor with renewed thought. The other makes a few more haphazard cuts until his hair is more or less in two layers, pulling the longer strands into a ponytail. He slaps his favorite pair of goggles on his head and grins at his best friend, satisfied with his work.

"Think about it this way, if you really don't like it then it'll always grow back." and smirks when Rude nods, setting to work.

"You won't regret this buddy," and then Reno wonders, _'Maybe I should get a catchphrase or something…'_

**-xXx-**

"Hurry up!"

"I'm trying!" the blond shouts back, scissors in one hand and a bottle of extraextraextra hold hair cement in the other.

"Seriously man, all the blood's rushing to my head here!" Axel whines, bent almost in half as his hair dangles towards the floor. Their new middle school's bathroom wasn't exactly the best place for a makeover, but his mother would have raised a fuss if they did it at home.

"So, what made you want to do something this ridiculous to your hair?" Demyx asks, putting the finishing touches on, and Axel shrugs as he straightens,

"I just got this crazy impulse to do something different, y'know?"

"…You look like a hedgehog that accidentally caught on fire during some sort of freak accident with a toaster, you do realize that right?" Demyx finally says, and they both start laughing helplessly at the comparison.

Suddenly there are shouts outside the door and they go rushing out into the hallway. A little ways down is a sizable group of kids, cheering at something.

"Come on, we'll be late for class," Demyx urges, tugging at Axel's sleeve, but the other shakes his head and pulls him along behind,

"Wait a second, I want to see what's going on," he mutters, almost as if he's in a trance as he makes his way closer. But by the time they reach the mass there's a teacher already breaking up what was a fight. He's got two boys by the collar, yanking them in the opposite direction. And through all the kids Axel manages to catch a glimpse of red hair.

Later the two learn that the kids involved in the fight, whoever they were, were expelled and transferred to a different middle school.

Axel could never understand why the news disappointed him.

* * *

"Axel! Slow down!" Demyx shouts, but the redhead in question continues pulling him down the street in an extremely rushed fashion.

"No way man, today's the day we finally do it!" he smirks, thinking back to his cell phone that he purposely left at home, the one that probably has at least twenty messages on it from his various family members begging him to reconsider. Fifteen was definitely _not_ too young for this kind of thing…right?

"Yes, but why _today?_ Seriously, you jumped out of bed this morning, and in the process stepped on me I might add, like you'd die if it didn't happen that very instant."

Axel doesn't say anything because he honestly doesn't know why. He just…got this sudden feeling, this sudden impulse. It seemed silly, he knew, but every so often he'd get these urges that felt like the world would cease to turn if he didn't listen and obey. He'd tell Demyx all of this later, after the deed was already done and therefore the blond couldn't try to talk sense into him.

So instead of saying all this on a busy street corner, Axel just smiles over his shoulder, "No better time then the present, right?" and pulls his best friend into the tattoo parlor behind him.

**-xXx-**

"So your dad finally agreed, huh?"

"Yeah." Rude nods, strolling down the street at a casual pace that conflicted with Reno's fidgety, and barely contained, movements.

"That was kinda out of blue. He was adamantly against it for long time."

"Mhm, it was very sudden."

The tattoo parlor they had picked out so many years ago comes into sight, and Rude finally succumbs to Reno's itch for a quicker pace. The redhead reaches for the door just as it opens on its own, two figures darting out. One of them accidentally bumps into Reno, their shoulders colliding.

"Sorry!" the person shouts over their shoulder, Reno managing to catch a spark of green and a sliver of black before the figure turns back around, focusing on his companion.

"I don't know why you got those, they make you look like some kind of pervy clown." the companion remarks.

The other one, the one that ran into him, the one with the head full of crimson spikes throws his head back and laughs as they disappear around the corner; and Reno is unsure why the action causes his heart to jump.

"So Reno, you never did tell me what you decided on getting," Rude subtly inquires, holding the door open, waiting.

The question breaks Reno out of his thoughts, and all traces on what he was going to get are immediately erased from him mind.

"Something small…right under my eyes."

* * *

He's seventeen; a reckless age. He's seventeen and he wonders if he'll ever regret this.

Axel runs a hand through the head of blond spikes beside him and wonders if this is what he really wants. Slowly, silently, he slips out of the bed and pulls his clothes on, shrugging on a coat as an after thought. He'll be back before morning…he just needs time to think.

The night air is crisp, the street lights a dull glow against the darkness. But he doesn't mind the chill, it helps him think, clears his previously groggy mind.

He turns north up the sidewalk, away from the docks, house after house slipping by him without notice.

After a while he can hear soft footsteps behind him, but they are going in the opposite direction. Whoever it is will be gone soon, lost in the darkness, and so he ignores the neurotic impulse to whip around and see who it could be.

**-xXx-**

Reno takes a drag on a cigarette and knows that this isn't what he wants. And the blond beside him, the one with the hair so spiky it could probably maim some unsuspecting civilian, knows this. The blond also knows that he himself doesn't really want this either. But it's okay because they both knew from the beginning, before any of this happened. They both know that the blond secretly dreams of a scar and gunmetal; and the redhead is lost, dreaming of something that he can't even put a face to.

They're both seventeen and already have something more to regret.

Reno pulls on his clothes, hanging his jacket over his shoulder with a lazy finger, and gives a half smile to his blond companion, leaving without a word

Out on the sidewalk Reno looks up and down the street listlessly. To his left is a lone figure, shuffling along with a defeated posture. And so he heads right, southbound, down to the docks. But he won't go all the way, because for some reason he just really doesn't like water lately.

He turns away from the mysterious figure because suddenly there are feelings he doesn't recognize bubbling up within him. Feelings that tell him to avoid the figure, and yet at the same time make sure the figure never leaves his sight. He ignores the undeniable pull that is tugging his heart northward.

* * *

Axel rushes; almost tripping over his shoes that aren't on all the way, almost choking on the toast half hanging from his lips, almost dropping everything that is unbalanced in his arms. He smashes the key in the door, trying to get it locked at the same time as dashing down the hallway to the stairs. If he's late for one more class, Professor Vexen will dump chemicals on him as punishment, of this he is sure.

Reno rushes; trying to locate his goggles and nightstick, trying to traverse his cluttered apartment, trying to put on his tie (but rips it off in frustration because he can _never _get it right, and it's not like it'll matter anyways). He forgoes locking the front door, letting it simply smash against the frame and swing back open, as he darts down the hallway to the elevators; the building is company owned, so no one will really care or even be surprised. If he's late for work again, Rufus will surely demote him to being a cafeteria lady again, he doesn't doubt it.

Axel misses the subway, and so has to run through the crowded streets.

Reno's car won't start, and so he's reduced to jacking Elena's bicycle.

Both are in such a hurry that neither notice as they shoot past each other.

**-xXx-**

Axel is held back after class, forced by Prof Vexen to take a remedial lesson for being late. The cranky man flings a beaker of something on Axel's hands and tells him that the effects take twenty minutes to set in, and he has to identify what the chemical is and where it is naturally found before he can wash it off.

Reno is prevented from taking his lunch break when Rufus finds it necessary to lecture him on his recent tardiness. It takes ten minutes of Reno tuning him out before his boss gets to the point and threatens to fire him if the pattern continues. He then has to listen to Elena rant and scream at him, for another ten minutes, for stealing her bike.

Axel finally gets to leave the college chemistry lab, his hands having only a slight reaction (the chemical turned out to be urushiol, the irritant found in poison ivy).

Once all the unpleasantries are out of the way, Reno manages to slip out of the Shinra Building and down to one of his favorite lunch spots.

Axel ambles down the street -which is not so crowded as this morning- taking his time, as he doesn't have any more classes this afternoon. There is construction on the road he usually takes to get home, so he's forced to take an unfamiliar route. He looks up from the sidewalk in front of him and around his surroundings to get his bearings, eyes eventually sweeping to the other side of the street. He stops in his tracks, eyes wide, feet seeming to be glued to the pavement, heart hammering in his chest.

_There._ Across the street is the flash of red he's been subconsciously chasing his whole life.

Reno stops, groaning when he sees the sign announcing the fact that his favorite diner 'is not open at this time due to an unforeseen accident'. He frowns and turns around, eyes falling on a figure watching him from across the street. His discontented expression melts away into one of pure shock. It seems like his heart has stopped.

Teal meets green, and all of the sudden it's like the fabric of reality has shifted off balance.


End file.
